Chris Eubank admits the stakes are high this weekend when he meets Liam Williams in their highly-anticipated middleweight showdown.

They clash at Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena in a fight that is not just set to settle a long-standing grudge, but in a contest that should deliver thrills and excitement.

“Extremely high,” Eubank admitted, when asked about the stakes. “This is a massive domestic fight but it’s also a fight where there’s a lot of pride involved and there’s a lot of reputation, a lot of needle, a lot of bad blood. “This is not a fight I can afford to look bad in, let alone lose. There are big, big things ahead of me in 2022 and I have to make a statement here to go forward and challenge for world titles.”

Eubank does agree, however, that styles should gel for entertainment. Williams is strong and aggressive; Eubank throws a lot of punches and doesn’t like to go backwards.

“I think the styles are going to go extremely well for me for the fans, most definitely not for him,” said the Brighton man. “It’s going to be a very fun fight while it lasts. I always going in to a fight expecting to have to dig deep. I always train for a 12-round fight, because you never know what a fighter’s going to bring. What I’ve learned over the years is guys who are not as dangerous as you might think or as they look, they raise their game when they fight me because they know this is their shot. My scalp is the path to big time boxing, having my name on their record, so I always train for a hard gruelling fight. My intention is to go out there and stop this guy.”

The fight has captured the imagination and Eubank is not concerned about fighting the Welshman on his home turf.

“I think there’s going to be a little bit of both,” he added, anticipating that there will be some support for him on the night. “It’s probably going to be more hostile than welcoming when I get there because we’re in his back garden but it’s okay, it’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before. If that’s what it took to make the fight and he had to have home advantage, it’s fine by me. It doesn’t make any difference to the outcome of the fight.”

Eubank also doesn’t think Williams switching trainers from Dominic Ingle to Adam Booth will make any difference. Eubank, who had a brief spell working with Booth, is simply running his own race under his own trainer, Roy Jones.

“It doesn’t affect what’s going to happen or how the fight’s going to play out,” Eubank said of the Booth-Williams partnership. “He is what he is, Adam Booth isn’t going to be able to change that, and the fighter that I was when I was with Adam Booth all those years ago, I’m a different animal now, so it doesn’t change anything.”
Eubank watched Williams’s world title fight with Demetrius Andrade last year and feels he knows what to expect on Saturday.

“The guy’s got heart, desire, the will to win,” Eubank continued. “He comes forward and he’s game, but he’s not at world level and he’s not at the level I am going to bring. He came forward for 12 rounds but it’s not enough at elite level. He thinks we’re in the same league, which is great for him I guess, but he’ll find out soon enough we’re totally different animals.”

Eubank talked about his ambitions for the year ahead and he’s hoping this will be a breakout year atop the sport and he wants titles.

“I want to be the middleweight world champion,” he concluded. “There are big fights in the summer in the winter, there are some big names out there and some big world titles. This is the first step towards all that.”

Williams believes he has the power to stop Eubank